The nursing home in long-term care education.

Nursing homes have long been used to teach geriatric medicine to medical students, primary care residents, and geriatric medicine fellows, but we may be able to more appropriately use this clinical setting by addressing principles of long-term care in addition to general geriatrics. Long-term care education starts with developing an understanding of the health care system and how to use services to maximize the functional abilities of our frailest elderly, and, depending on the needs of specific learners may incorporate skills such as quality improvement methodology, interdisciplinary team participation, managing infection risk within a community, and optimally transitioning patients between care venues. At each level of medical education, specific long-term care learning outcomes should be established with attention given to appropriate assessment of these outcomes. Curricular elements should be directed by the needs of the specific group of learners and the resources of the institution.